This site is a dream which three of us, Narayanan Raghunathan, Amanda Cazalet and Shyam Santhanam had and here we open this site for your perusal and participation.

All three of us were writing Haiku and discussed them. We thought we needed a platform for us and other like-minded poets. { Note ~ Amanda has left this venture and is not active on the internet anymore }

We realized some haiku sites are performing the necessary task of being the technical guardians of haiku. For a rough example, 1000 haiku are submitted and the editor chooses ten or twenty. The power these guardians must be enjoying is fearsome! Surely their selection is not correct or perfect and cannot be, because of innumerable guiding factors and vast prejudices that determine such an arbitrary selection. But this is understandable and inevitable in any edited magazine/site.

So we recognized many more good haiku must be needing a space of presence and here in this site we provide that freely.

Here, dear author, you edit, take care, and post what you want to. They will be stored in your author archive too. If they are published elsewhere earlier, please give relevant details.

No towering Gurus of Haiku will tell you, “Where is the kigo/ kireji?", or “Why is there no juxtaposition?” or “This is imagist poetry, not Haiku!” etc. ad nauseam.

Honestly, as founders of this site, we do not know for sure any definition of Haiku that is perfectly satisfactory. It is unlikely anybody can really define it too.

It is too seamless a word now, to be bound by a definition.

One can see that we have sections for Senryu, Tanka, Sijo, Haiga, Haibun,Sedoka(!), Cinquain, General Short-Verse and we also have a Photo Haiku section where members may post photos and haiku on any photo submitted.

#(!) [Sedoka is a hopeful section. We don't think that there are many people actively writing sedoka. The pioneers may use our site to propagate their sedoka. ]

We have a section where the member may post linked short verse: ie. Linked Haiku, Linked Tanka, Linked Senryu, Linked Sijo, Linked Cinquain Linked General short-verse etc.

We have a special section for "Elucidations and Appreciations" where one takes a haiku or another short poem of the various genres specified, special to oneself, old or new and elucidates its subtle nuances and hidden aesthetic flavours.

There is a section to post reviews of books relevant to the site. One may post a review on a classic book or a newer book.

Our Monthly Anthology Section will take off as the site grows visible wings!

For our "Featured Haijin" section, we are doing the preliminary work. By April 2006, we hope to introduce the first Haijin. If you have any special names to suggest for this column please do feel free to e-mail to Narayanan Raghunathan at

Please note that you can increase or decrease the letter sizes on pages of this site.

General Rules and etiquette for posting on Wonder Haiku Worlds:

(1) No offensive, pornographic or injurious material.

(2) Proper acknowledgment of the works of others is expected and highly appreciated.

(3) Please remember that this is an active community for general participation, for all ages and sensitivities and so please be mindful. Any material deemed unfit for the theme of this community can be removed, at the site administrators' discretion. We also appreciate if we are brought to notice of any such material that you may come across on this site.